South America

Alberto Nisman was about to present the findings of his investigation of the cover-up of Iranian responsibility for the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish community center when he died in January 2015 under mysterious circumstances. The bombing was an act of mass murder; it killed 85 people. Was Nisman himself murdered in turn? We covered the attempts to unravel the circumstances behind his death in a series of »

The Wall Street Journal devotes a good page-one story to a review of the mysterious death of Alberto Nisman. By Taos Turner and Reed Johnson, the story is “A body, a pistol, and few answers in Argentina” (accessible here via Google). It is an extraordinary and maddening case. The Journal story derives in part from the independent investigation of Nisman’s death commissioned by Nisman’s former companion, Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado. »

Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro is pushing his countrymen into a Castroite abyss of tyranny and impoverishment. Give up your freedom and Maduro will throw in immiseration too. It’s a left-wing package deal. Simnon Romero and Girish Gupta don’t put it quite that way in their New York Times story this morning. The intelligent reader, however, may be able to draw his own conclusions: Let’s take it from the top: For »

The death of Alberto Nisman under suspicious circumstances has rocked Argentina and raised serious doubts about the government. The AP roundup from Buenos Aires reports that “Death of prosecutor shakes faith in president, government institutions in Argentina.” Journalist Damian Pachter broke the story of Nisman’s death last week. In the most recent chapter of the story, Pachter has fled Argentina for Israel out of concerns for his safety. Haaretz has »

The death of Alberto Nisman in his Buenos Aires apartment continues to give rise to troubling revelations something other than the suicide that appeared to be the cause of his death. Nisman was of course the Argentine prosecutor who charged the Iranian regime with the bombing of the 1994 Jewish community center; 85 Argentinians were killed in the bombing, the worst terror attack in the country’s history. Nisman was killed »

The news related to the death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman this past Sunday is arriving in torrent. Nisman was killed under suspicious circumstances on the eve of the explosive testimony he was to give regarding his government’s complicity with Iran to suppress the investigation of the 1994 Jewish community center bombing; the suspicious circumstances include the staging of his death as an apparent suicide. The New York Times reports »

Circumstantial evidence suggests that Alberto Nisman committed suicide at his Buenos Aires apartment on Sunday. Within Argentina, however, this circumstantial evidence has been treated with substantial skepticism. The New York Times conveys the suspicions in an article by Jonathan Gilbert and Simon Romero: “Puzzling death of a prosecutor grips Argentina.” Christopher Dickey’s Daily Beast article puts Nisman’s death in the context of the ongoing war between Israel and Iran. Next »

The BBC reports that Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead on Sunday. He was found in a pool of blood with a gunshot wound to his head at his apartment in Buenos Aires. The BBC report notes that a gun and a cartridge shell were found next to Nisman’s body. The Times of Israel has more here and the Wall Street Journal has more here. One would infer from »

Occasional contributor Mark Falcoff writes to forward this article that was commissioned to appear in Spanish translation on September 11 in the big Chilean daily La Segunda. He is identified there as a former staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute and two of his books are listed, one of which is Modern Chile, 1970-1989: A Critical History. Dr. Falcoff notes: »

Occasional contributor Mark Falcoff is resident scholar emeritus at AEI. He is the the author, among other books, of Modern Chile, 1970-1989: A Critical History and Cuba the Morning After: Confronting Castro’s Legacy. Mr. Falcoff sorts out some of the underlying themes in Venezuela’s forthcoming elections: As anyone who’s been following events in Venezuela with even half an eye knows, provisional president Nicolás Maduro (named by the late strongman Hugo »

Disclosing the death of Hugo Chávez yesterday Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro kicked out two U.S. military attachés for allegedly plotting against Venezuela and even suggested that Washington may have been behind Mr. Chávez’s cancer. The Wall Street Journal reports that Maduro said the country would likely discover in the coming days that Chávez “was attacked with this illness.” American officials rejected Maduro’s dramatic revelations, but what would you expect »

I was checking out a series of tweets, compiled by Nathaniel Botwinick at the Corner, called “Leftists Worldwide Defend and Mourn Hugo Chavez.” Among those paying to tribute to the Venezuelan thug were usual suspects like Ken Livingstone and George Galloway. Then, I saw this tweet from one “Joseph Barton” (@Joey7Barton): “Sad to hear of President Chavez’s passing… #RIP.” Who is Joey Barton? He’s a soccer thug. By this, I »

Hugo Chavez has died. The Washington Post calls him “passionate but polarizing.” That’s a way of putting it, I suppose. Eventually, the Post provides a few examples of Chavez’s polarizing passion: He criticized the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and, in a speech at the United Nations in 2006, said President George W. Bush was “the devil.” He called Tony Blair, then Britain’s prime minister, “an imperialist pawn who »

Occasional contributor Mark Falcoff is resident scholar emeritus at AEI. He is the the author, among other books, of Modern Chile, 1970-1989: A Critical History and Cuba the Morning After: Confronting Castro’s Legacy. Mr. Falcoff comments on Venezuela’s future from a perspective that may have some resonance closer to home: Careful reading of news stories coming out of Venezuela these days lead one to an ineluctible conclusion: when president-for-life Hugo »

Has the Obama administration ever met an anti-American ruler it won’t give comfort to? The question arises again from reports that the State Department has extended the hand of good fellowship to Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro. Why? Because with Hugo Chavez soon to depart this world, State sees “an opening” through which it can “engage” hostile Venezuela. Whenever one hears President Obama or the State Department speak of “openings” »

We have been following the impending death of Hugo Chavez in Havana, most recently in “Weekend at Hugo’s.” Our friends at Investor’s Business Daily have now posted a terrific editorial on the subject. What are we to make of Chavez’s decision to opt for CastroCare over a modern hospital in Brazil or elsewhere in South America? Was Chavez perhaps an uncritical consumer of the gospel according to Ray Suarez and »